


Memories Never Fade and loved ones don't grow older

by bj62



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-29 02:46:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19820953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bj62/pseuds/bj62





	Memories Never Fade and loved ones don't grow older

In a few days I would have been married to Rand for 29 years. He is still with me although I am now a widow longer than a wife. No children, but the last thing that survived was our cat. She was beautiful and outlived the years we were married. When she died I found myself bereft in more ways than one. 

I was alone, but let me digress a moment. 

When we first met it was at a open air market. When next we met, it was three weeks later on our first date. I find it poetic that some of our favorite restaurants no longer exist. Our first date started at a truck stop because I knew he would not find his way to the house in the dark. He arrived five minutes before my time limit was up. He followed me home and he took me from there.

I had no curfew and our first date was spent with me telling him all my faults because I believed in being up front with him. The date lasted until the early morning hours. I told him I would not kiss him on the lips on the first date, so in the moonlight and with a lake in the background, he kissed my hand.

Skip ahead to the day of our marriage. It was a beautiful day. We were married by a Justice of the Peace outside on a week day. My logic was that his work week started on Thursday and ended on Monday.

I was practical. We got suit jackets instead of tuxes for our fathers and he wore a dusty rose jacket and tie. My dress was lace and just covered my knees.

I knew I loved him almost from that first day. I firmly believe that you see with your heart and not your eyes. I learned that the want of someone becomes a need. That was why his death was so painful and left me adrift. It leaves me adrift still. I have met and gone out with other men, but nothing compares to the joy I felt when I was with him.

I am not saying that we did not have fights. I can tell you that he slept more than once on the couch. Something kept pulling us to each other. It was the love and compassion and passion that we shared.

Both of us came from long lasting marriages. My mother and my dad were married in 1952 and his parents married a few years later. My parents laughed and loved and took care of the three children. I was the youngest and the one who had the maladies. My sister was born eight years earlier.

Circumstances change how things are. My mother and father loved us equally but differently. My brother was born two years before me and there is no way that you can treat a son the same way as a daughter.

Rand was the eldest and four years later his sister was born. His parents showed them affection, but his sister was more demanding.

Rand was the one who, as a toddler, unscrewed the dining room table. His mom put a plate on it and it collapsed. 

I am the one who had brand new shoes and while my brother was at the doctors, saw a puddle and jumped in it full force. I then heard my mother yelling at me and telling me I was going to be punished. When we got home, she had changed her mind. She had seen the expression on my face...

We remember moments.

Rand would hold me when I wept. He could make me blush from thirty feet and took such glee in it. We would share showers together before work. That was a wonderful way to wake up.

He died thirteen years into the marriage. When he was diagnosed with the terminal illness that took his life, I asked him what do we do.

"We fight!" He said.

I made him a quilt and put sun catchers in his window. I did everything I could to keep him fighting. I gave him words to defeat the micromonstrosity that was killing him. I firmly believed that his mind could help him survive and live.

It was not my choice for him to fight the battle it was his. I refused to be negative around him and tried to keep positive people near him. I may have cried but it was not in his presence. My life as well as his depended on me being upbeat. I had a picture of the cat for him. I gave him a card with her paw print. He loved her and she loved him.

I had a dream during this time. We would be walking down the streets of Pittsburgh in broad daylight. Two low lifes would approach us with guns. Much as I fought, Rand did not hesitate and pushed me out of the way.

My voice was inhuman as it came from my being. I have no idea how i got to him, but I managed to be there for his last breath. 

We merged one last time, and in the dream I did everything I could to get into the path of the bullet. 

Reality was no longer real without him. Til death us do part is for the birds. He is with me still. The love has changed. It has metamorphisised.

It is because of him that I hand out prayers. It is because of him that I smile at others. It is because of him that I can still love.

I can still hear his voice. I can still feel his arms around me or holding my hand. 

All that I am is because of his love and the love that God has given us. God graced me with his presence. I am still breathing.

After all this time, he is still in my heart. From the day we met, and from the day we said our vows on that sunny afternoon in a grove of trees, til that first night when we did not know where one of us started and the other ended, we taught each other how to love. His heart may have stopped and he may have taken his last breath, but his love still grows.

He took the damn bullet.

On the day he died, I knew he was gone. I went into his room and there was no response to my touch. There was no response to my kiss. His heart was still breathing because they had restarted it, but the essence that made him who he was had ceased.

this is the prayer I have been handing out all these years. God gave me the words.

Thank you God for this day

and for whatever comes my way

Keep those I love safe from harm

embrace them in your loving arms

No matter where they are from me

within my heart they'll always be

amen

finis


End file.
